This review was originally published during the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. Somers Town opens at Film Forum in New York on Wednesday.

I saw six films at Tribeca this weekend, and five of them were completely blown off the map by Somers Town, Shane Meadows’ practically perfect follow-up to his 2007 triumph, This is England. England was one of my favorite films of last year, but its political/historical aims, admittedly, occasionally overwhelmed Meadows’ more subtle, character-based observations. Somers Town is less ambitious but more impressive, a 70-minute portrait of a moment with zero fat to cut and not a false note.

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Film Movement has acquired distribution rights to Shane Meadows’ short feature Somers Town, one of our favorite films of Tribeca 2008. According to indieWIRE, “the distributor plans a July 2009 theatrical opening in New York, followed by a national roll out.” When I saw the film last April, I called it a “70-minute portrait of a moment with zero fat to cu and not a false note.”

Of the 14 films that I saw during Tribeca Film Festival, only three were so under-accomplished that they begged the question of why they were programmed in the first place. This is an improvement over past years. Meanwhile, I saw four films that qualify as serious discoveries. With the exception of Shane Meadows’ Somers Town, over which I’ve already raved, these films are imperfect but thrillingly risky, and fascinating in their flaws. It’s maybe worth noting that only one of these titles arrived in Tribeca as a World Premiere, and that film, The Guest of Cindy Sherman, is set and was made just blocks away from the festival’s theoretical (but no longer physical) home. It’s shocking that there isn’t currently a festival in New York City that’s seriously focused on celebrating locally-produced work. Tribeca, so in need of a refined identity, might want to take note that the niche is up for grabs.

My notes on each of the 14 films, in order of preference, follow after the jump.

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• Swedish vampire buzz magnet Let The Right One In took the top narrative prize at the Tribeca Film Festival last night. Shane Meadows’ Somers Town walked away with consolation acting prizes for its two young stars, and the extremely narratively confused My Marlon and Brando inexplicably won the Best New Narrative Filmmaker award. More Tribeca wrap-up stuff later today.
• Variety says Iron Man “is looking like an ironclad winner” at the box office (for what it’s worth, the 8pm screening I went to last night was barely half-full), whilst Made of Honor, Patrick Dempsey’s return to headlining big-screen romantic comedies after a 20 year hiatus, hopes to “generate some counterprogramming coin.”
• Comedian/Microsoft pitchman Demetri Martin has been cast in the lead role in Ang Lee’s next film, as the closeted gay man who accidentally invented Woodstock.
• New Line has bought its first pitch since moving in with the corporate parents. Dan Mintner: Badass for Hire, a parody of films like Cobra and Predator, is being positioned as “an R-rated comedy in the spirit of Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle and Wedding Crashers, the kind of movie that ‘classic’ New Line was good at making and that the new iteration will be making as well.” Diablo Cody svengali Mason Novick will co-produce.

I saw six films at Tribeca this weekend, and five of them were completely blown off the map by Somers Town, Shane Meadows’ practically perfect follow-up to his 2007 triumph, This is England. England was one of my favorite films of last year, but its political/historical aims, admittedly, occasionally overwhelmed Meadows’ more subtle, character-based observations. Somers Town is less ambitious but more impressive, a 70-minute portrait of a moment with zero fat to cut and not a false note.

…Read more

We take this brief break from our wall-to-wall SXSW coverage to link to the competition line-up for 2008 Tribeca Film Festival, currently posted at indieWIRE. As you know, Baby Mama will open the festival; according to The Reeler, Speed Racer will close it. Here’s a look at a few titles of interest in between:

Shane Meadows’ Somers Town, previously mentioned here.

Guest of Cindy Sherman. Official synopsis: “Analyzing his relationship with reclusive artist Cindy Sherman leads videographer Paul H-O to confront his own ego and identity in this personal and often humorous documentary, which features unprecedented access to Sherman and a unique view of the New York art world.”

Chevolution. Official synopsis: “How did the iconic image of Che Guevara end up on beer bottles and bikinis? This inquiry into the ethics and aesthetics of appropriation investigates how the enduring symbol of Cuba’s Communist Revolution skyrocketed to fame and was ultimately devoured by its own worst enemy: capitalism. English, Spanish with English subtitles.”

I Am Because We Are. Madonna saves orphans.

A President to Remember. Directed by Robert Drew. Synopsis: “Culled from “direct cinema” pioneer Robert Drew’s unparalleled behind-the-scenes footage of JFK at work in the Oval Office, and the events that brought him there, this remarkable film proves a timely update of the Kennedy mythos and an eerily intimate portrait of the now-legendary man himself.”

Shane Meadows has very quietly followed up his skinhead instant-classic This is England with Somers Town, a black-and-white, 75-minute feature fronted by England’s young star, Thomas Turgoose. The film popped up unexpectedly at the Berlin Film Festival last month, where it earned a rapturous Variety review and very little other press. Now Twitch has a slide show of images from the film, apparently put together by Meadows himself in lieu of a trailer. See it above.